O.C. native hopes for big break on TV show 'The Next'

Angela Mukul, 23, a contestant on the CW network's singing competition show, "The Next," poses at It's A Grind, the Anaheim coffee shop owned by her mom and stepfather. On each episode of the show, four singers compete to win a recording contract with Atlantic Records.EUGENE GARCIA, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

â€˜The Nextâ€™

The casting notice wasn't all that specific – TV series seeks musicians ready to take it to the next level – but to Angela Mukul it was all she needed to see.

The 23-year-old Orange County native had graduated from Cal State Fullerton a few months earlier and beat a quick path to Hollywood, chasing the dream of making it as a singer-songwriter, finding the reality of work as a waitress.

So Mukul sent in a few homemade videos and landed an in-person audition which seemed to go well. Certainly, she thought, this seemed miles better than the long-shot chaos of the cattle call auditions for "American Idol" she'd lined up for back in high school.

And after a few months of back and forth?

"Nothing!" Mukul says, remembering how disappointed she felt when the phone calls and emails from the casting agency stopped. "And I was so sad. I was going, 'I'm never trying out for a reality show again!"

But while Mukul might have thought she was done with TV singing competitions, the show wasn't done with her. And on Thursday, when "The Next" airs on the CW network at 9 p.m., Mukul arrives on a national stage with a chance to win a contract with Atlantic Records.

"I still can't believe it happened," she says. "It was like a dream."

* * *

As a child, maybe three years old, Mukul learned to sing along with the Disney and Christian music sing-along albums she listened to at home. The fireplace hearth was her stage, her mother and grandma her audience.

At Calvary Chapel Academy in Yorba Linda, she sang in the elementary school choir and blossomed, her mother says, in the spotlight of school musicals, belting out her songs with confidence and poise. "We couldn't believe it was her, because she was normally so shy," says Tammy Nadel, her mom.

When she was 14 or 15, her blues-playing stepdad Jeff Nadel taught her a few guitar chords and her first song, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." She showed promise, so he signed her up for lessons and she quickly learned her way around an acoustic guitar.

At 15, she started playing live, her first gig at Java Joe's in Yorba Linda, where she played covers such as Jewel's "Who Will Save Your Soul?" Counting Crows' "Mr. Jones" and K.T. Tunstall's "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree."

"Now I don't get nervous," Mukul says. "But then I was so scared to talk between songs. I was really shy so I'd pretty much just play my songs."

Getting out of the coffee-shop-and-restaurant circuit and into street performing cured her of that, she says. After learning enough songs to play for three or four hours at a stretch, she got permits to play at Irvine Spectrum, Anaheim Garden Walk and the Birch Street Promenade in Brea.

"It's different there because people aren't there to see you, so you have to get their attention," Mukul says. "It needs to be upbeat. What's popular on the radio, that's great. And then you can throw in an original between songs."

Angela Mukul, 23, a contestant on the CW network's singing competition show, "The Next," poses at It's A Grind, the Anaheim coffee shop owned by her mom and stepfather. On each episode of the show, four singers compete to win a recording contract with Atlantic Records. EUGENE GARCIA, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Angela Mukul, 23, a contestant on the CW network's singing competition show, "The Next," poses with her guitar at her parents' coffee shop in Anaheim. She has been playing in Orange County venues since she was 15. EUGENE GARCIA, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Angela Mukul, 23, a contestant on the CW network's singing competition show, "The Next," talks about her career while at her parents' coffee shop in Anaheim. Her first appearance on the show is scheduled for Sept. 20. EUGENE GARCIA, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Angela Mukul, 23, a contestant on the CW network's singing competition show, "The Next," poses at her parents' coffee shop in Anaheim. On the show, Angela was mentored by Gloria Estefan for three days before performing in front of a live audience. EUGENE GARCIA, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Singer-songwriter Angela Mukul, right, backstage with singer Gloria Estefan. Mukul is one of four contestants on the Los Angeles episode of the CW network's "The Next." Estefan served as her mentor for the episode that airs on Thursday, Sept. 20. COURTESY OF ANGELA MUKUL
Angela Mukul, right, and Gloria Estefan talk in the recording studio at the Studio City home Mukul shares with a group of roommates. Courtesy of The CW

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